Booby trapped weapons and Ammo

This is another thread I'm just going to copy and paste from my own web site... I'm doing so because I feel this single issue is very important and needs to be addressed... so here it is...

Booby trapped weapons and Ammo

<TABLE class="sites-layout-name-one-column sites-layout-hbox" cellSpacing=0 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><TBODY><TR><TD class="sites-layout-tile sites-tile-name-content-1">Would it really surprise anyone here to learn a very common practice of all militaries is to booby-trap weapons and ammo for other's to find??? been going on for a good many years, maybe centuries even???
look at these examples from this book

(Source: “Malice Aforethought – A History of Bobby Traps from World War One to Vietnam”, Ian Jones, p 225, 226)

<CODE>In Malaya there is evidence that this practice was actively pursued. In Operation Purvey, some 10,000 rounds of .303 were doctored with high explosive. On firing, either from a rifle or a Bren light machine-gun, such a cartridge would detonate, burst the barrel, and kill or severely injure the firer. There was some concern about the legality of such actions, but General Templer, the GOC, dismissed these. </CODE>

<CODE>A further 50,000 rounds were ordered which were filled with a thermite incendiary composition. These when fired would simply melt and seal the breaches of the enemy weapons. The advantage of these was that if the enemy discovered the doctored rounds and managed to get them back into the British supply system they would not kill the British troops. The SAS also doctored weapons such as the Lee Enfield rifles, which were left for the communist terrorists (CT) to find. </CODE>

<CODE>It wasn't only the SAS that were involved in such activities. Roy Follows joined the Malaya Police and spent much time fighting the CT. In one incident he recorded that he was summoned to the Officer Commanding Special Branch and given a bandolier of .303 ammunition. He looked at it and on being asked what it was stated that it was the normal ball ammunition. He was then told that in fact the rounds had been doctored and the propellant, a low explosive, had been replaced with high explosive. Follows was then told to leave this ammunition where it was probable that the CT were likely to find it. He recorded that, several weeks after he had left the ammunition, there was an ambush by the terrorists in which it was reported that, as they opened fire, there were a number of breach explosions, which resulted in the ambush being abandoned… </CODE>

started with pulling bullets of ammo and replacing the powder with a full case of Bullseye pistol powder.(Can you say BOOM?)
This was successful enough that the military had special ammo filled with high explosives manufactured on Guam and Taiwan.

Booby trapped ammo included 7.62x39, mortar shells fused to explode as soon as they were dropped down the tube, and hand grenades fused to explode as soon as the arming lever was released.

The practice was for Special Forces, LRRP, SEAL and SOG units to "salt" ammo caches that were found, or to simply leave a few rounds near a trail where they'd be found.
The programs were so successful, the military issued special orders to American troops to NOT use any enemy ammo or munitions.
In order to allow use of enemy caliber ammo by South Vietnamese troops, the US had special runs of 7.62x39 ammo made in Taiwan.

There have been several cases in the US where booby trapped ammunition has been left at shooting ranges.
For this reason, NEVER shoot ammunition you find.
It may be improperly loaded, or even deliberately booby trapped.

the people who do this are so good at it you cannot tell just by looking!

this list goes on and on and on and on and on....
so to all those folks over the years who have told me to stick with common current mill spec rounds
you might want to rethink any plans you have about scavenging weapons and ammo... I think it's much safer to learn to reload your own
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There's a Youtube video out that shows a tango yelling "Allahu Ackbar!", trips the trigger of his AK47, which promply dismembers itself in his hands - hilarious!!

Please use correct English. Show the world Americans aren't illiterate.
Capitalization and punctuation are your friends.
Text-speak and hashtags get you into the ignore list.
As will tagging my name.
I have learned on these online forums, that nobody proofreads anymore. Truly a lost art.
Throwing a comma after every three or four words is not correct. Makes your post hard to read.

The practice was for Special Forces, LRRP, SEAL and SOG units to "salt" ammo caches that were found, or to simply leave a few rounds near a trail where they'd be found.
The programs were so successful, the military issued special orders to American troops to NOT use any enemy ammo or munitions.
In order to allow use of enemy caliber ammo by South Vietnamese troops, the US had special runs of 7.62x39 ammo made in Taiwan.

Click to expand...

It was called Project Eldest Son.

Eldest Son cartridges originally were reloaded with a powder similar to PETN high explosive, but sufficiently shock-sensitive that an ordinary rifle primer would detonate it. This white powder, however, did not even faintly resemble gunpowder. SOG's technical wizard, Ben Baker - our answer to James Bond's "Q" - decided this powder might compromise the program if ever an enemy soldier pulled apart an Eldest Son round. He obtained a substitute explosive that so closely resembled gunpowder that it would pass inspection by anyone but an ordnance expert. While the AKM and Type 56 AKs and the RPD light machine gun could accommodate a chamber pressure of 45,000 p.s.i., Baker's deadly powder generated a whopping 250,000 p.s.i. "Project Eldest Son

Click to expand...

The trick was to have the same packaging, lot numbers etc as their other ammunition.

Boobytrapped ammunition clearly was getting into enemy hands, so it was time to initiate SOG's insidious "black PSYOP" exploitation. "Our interest was not in killing the soldier that was using the weapon," explained Colonel Steve Cavanaugh, who replaced Singlaub in 1968. "We were trying to leave in the minds of the North Vietnamese that the ammunition they were getting from China was bad ammunition." Hopefully, this would aggravate Hanoi's leadership - which traditionally distrusted the Chinese - and cause individual soldiers to question the reliability (and safety) of their Chinese-supplied arms and ordnance. One Viet Cong document - forged by SOG and insinuated into enemy channels through a double-agent - made light of exploding weapons, claiming, "We know that it is rumored some of the ammunition has exploded in the AK-47. This report is greatly exaggerated. It is a very, very small percentage of the ammunition that has exploded."
Another forged document announced, "Only a few thousand such cases have been found thus far," and concluded, "The People's Republic of China may have been having some quality control problems [but] these are being worked out and we think that in the future there will be very little chance of this happening."
That, "in the future," hook was especially devious, because an enemy soldier looking at lot numbers could see that virtually all his ammo had been loaded years earlier. No fresh ammo could possibly reach soldiers fighting in the South for many years.Project Eldest Son

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Heraclitus:
“Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.”